As BBC Four’s latest Nordic noir comes to a chilly and chilling end, we’re taking a look at how our relationship with police chief Andri and his tiny two-person team has evolved over time.

After a few rather unfortunate events at the start of the investigation, just how did we ever learn to love this seemingly useless lot? The residents of Seyðisfjörður might have been trapped, but we’ve been on quite a journey with Andri, Hinrika and Ásgeir…

First, they lost the body

With a terrible blizzard engulfing the village and police support days away, Andri set to work on the grisly case. But things quickly took a turn for the amateur when photos of the body turned up on social media – and they ‘mislaid’ it altogether.

Admittedly the body was stolen from the makeshift factory-slash-morgue, but losing track of a torso doesn’t look great when you’re trying to convince the Powers That Be that you’ve got everything under control. And things were about to get worse.

Then the suspect escaped - and died

The blame lies quite squarely with Ásgeir on this one, given he let the foul-mouthed people trafficker out of his cell, but it coloured our perception of the team as a whole.

This was a low point – but Andri the bear was about to show his claws.

Andri took charge

Following the initial storm, Iceland’s awesome landscape played its part in proceedings for a second time when snow hurtled down the mountain towards the village. This was when we first saw Andri as a real leader, barking orders in both Icelandic and flawless English to organise the recovery of Sigurður and his father.

Together with that rousing speech in the church, this was the turning point that we were all waiting for: finally we could get behind the gruffly heroic Andri. But what about his team?

Hinrika got all the goss

Quietly spoken, and with her forehead permanently knitted in the most sceptical of frowns, it was hard to get a read on Hinrika in the early episodes. But when she started to investigate alone her mettle – and kindness – shone through.

Ultimately she was responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs in the case, thanks to her unlikely partnership with resident “guardian angel” Rögnvaldur and his trusty telescope.

We met the Reykjavik team. We did not like the Reykjavik team.

When the snow storm finally cleared, Trausti and his band of decidedly unmerry men flew in by helicopter, determined to humiliate our now beloved Andri by quickly wrapping up the case.

In reality, they ignored key facts of the investigation, and bullied Sigurður into the confession which contributed to his shocking suicide.

The final showdown

As the conspiracy unravels and those involved grow increasingly desperate, we’re heading towards a face-off between the local police trio and the town’s elite. Can Team Andri complete their redemption with a rousing finale…?

The final two episodes of Trapped will be broadcast on Saturday, 12 March from 9pm on BBC Four. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

 

The story of the red coat is as follows. Marc Evans, the director of Hinterland's first episode in 2013, wanted my character, Mared Rhys, to have a parka jacket.

Hubert Tachanovski, the director of photography for the first series, wanted a bright colour, so that in the very wide shots of the landscape, you could easily spot Mared out of the green, greys, and browns of the land.

Ffion Elinor, Hinterland’s costume designer, wanted a bit of fur (fake, obviously). And I wanted something that could keep me warm during the snow, hail, wind and rain. So the red coat that Ffion eventually found brought all these ideas together.

A lot of fans ask on Twitter where the coat is from. It's actually an Italian make, and is brilliant.

The coat has a certain following, and I call it a ‘she’, as she is beautiful and strong, weatherproof and brilliant.

As regards to her having her own Twitter account, I am very surprised that she doesn't have one. In episode four (in 2014) where I wore a cream version, some people felt it wasn't right. In a way, the coat is Mared's uniform, as if to say: "I'm ready for anything, bring it on. Rain, wind, hail, snow." And certainly filming in Ceredigion for such a long period of time, we will encounter all sorts of weather.

With regards to her being a character in her own right, she is welcome to have all the adventures she deserves. Hopefully she can be auctioned off for a charity at the end of the series.

I personally would steer clear of wearing a big red parka in future, as I feel it would spoil my disguise in real life. Normally I don't wear make-up and I tie my hair back, so wearing a similar coat would blow my cover somewhat! Although I have bought a few coats from the same company, as they are so well made. Buy cheap, but twice I always say.

If I was to buy Mared a new coat, it would have to be extremely warm and comfortable, but maybe a little more fitted for when the seasons get warmer.

Mali Harries plays DI Mared Rhys in Hinterland.

Hinterland, series two continues on BBC Four on Saturday, 30 April at 9pm. The series was first broadcast from Wednesday, 6 January at 9pm on BBC One Wales. The series will be available to watch from everywhere in the UK in BBC iPlayer. Each episode is available for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Barbara Murray (#328) asks: "It's a brilliant series, but so sad at the end. No hope of some happiness?"

Anne replies:

Joyce (#36) asks: "I thought the father of the baby had been killed in the bomb explosion. Who's the man Gilout phoned? Is it Laure's ex-boyfriend? Is he the real father? Where's he been all these weeks?"

Anne replies:

Thank you to everyone who joined us. The Q&A with Anne is now over but you can still comment below.

Spiral is on Saturday, 14 February at 9pm on BBC Four and BBC Four HD. The series five double bill finale is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until 9.45pm on Monday, 16 March.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

One thing that changed this year around the overall tone of the show was Steve's notion that the first series was opium and this second series was cocaine. I took this mostly to represent the hunger and ambition of Tommy Shelby as well as the loosening grip on reality and emotional peaks and troughs of the other characters. Therefore I wanted this year to have a different voice within the music and to blend the original tracks into the score in a way that would make the music more cohesive in its voice.

My fantasy from fairly early on was both to use music by PJ Harvey within the source tracks, and to find a way to collaborate with her. Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy Shelby, is great friends with Flood, the producer who has worked with Polly Harvey (as well as Nick Cave) and we began to talk about whether there might be a way for this to work. We needed someone else in the process who could create an original score from Polly’s music and Flood suggested Paul Hartnoll (formerly of Orbital) as a final collaborator in the process.

The creation of music for the show began with When Under Ether by PJ Harvey.

I knew that I wanted to use this for Tommy's epic recovery canal boat journey in episode two from early on. In the first series violence was often handled in a way that was heavily stylised - using slow motion photography and blissed out white noise soundtrack.

I wanted the violence to feel overly vivid and intense. Somehow I wanted the violent acts to have larger consequence and danger for our central characters. At the end of episode one, I wanted the audience to feel that Tommy might actually die for real. I tried to achieve this through use of overly long held takes, hand held cameras getting into and becoming involved in the action and small shutter angle (also known as a skinny shutter) creating sharper, more vivid images for these moments.

I also knew that When Under Ether contained the emotional tone that I wanted certain aspects of the story to be saturated in. Flood deconstructed the track from the multi-tracks and Paul composed around and from that in a way that was sympathetic to Polly’s original, supportive of the drama and content of the scenes, and emotionally moving in a direct manner.

In the end Paul's score is very much his music, but the process to get there means that it belongs absolutely to the same world as Polly’s compositions that make up the heart of our world: When Under Ether, Down By The Water, To Bring You My Love being the central trilogy (though we have used many other tracks of hers through the show).

Colm McCarthy is the director of series two of Peaky Blinders.

Peaky Blinders continues on Thursday, 6 November at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Peaky Blinders 
BBC Production: Listen to an extended interview with Colm McCarthy
BBC Production: Listen to an extended interview with Steven Knight
BBC Radio 6 Music: Cillian Murphy and Flood speak to Lauren Laverne

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

His wife Ros (Claudie Blakley) isn’t prepared to talk about it, and Vince is only holding onto his sanity by his fingertips.

One night he picks up an old friend in his cab. Col (Ian Hart) has just got out of jail after six years.

He has fitted back in with his old gang and manages to put some work Vince’s way. Vince knows it’s 'no questions asked' - and from then on, there is no turning back.

Ian Hart and I have been friends from childhood. I have tried to work with him many times, but he has always been busy working in America on films with Will Smith and Dustin Hoffman to name just a couple.

So I was biting my nails right up until filming started, hoping this time it would work out.

He is a fantastic actor. But also, because we are so close, we can fill in the gaps in the relationship between Vince and Col.

There is almost a shorthand between us.

One of the first scenes we had to shoot is a scene really near the end of episode three.

It was tough to get into, because we hadn’t done any of the scenes leading up to it.

But because Ian and I know each other so well, we were able to go for it and trust each other. It worked really well.

I was very nervous as it was made by my own production company, Highfield Pictures.

But we teamed up with Red Productions, who I have worked for a lot as an actor, and it was a joy.

I have directed, acted and produced in the past, so wearing many hats is something I enjoy. But it’s important to have a solid and talented team around you.

My partner at Highfield Pictures, Jolyon Symonds, does all the heavy lifting when it comes to producing.

Our director, Jamie Payne, is that rare thing, a great actor’s director and a great action director.

And I have wanted to work with our writer, Danny Brocklehurst, for many years.

I have to say, the whole shoot was memorable for me. I love the North West and Manchester. It’s a great city to work in.

The driving sequences were really fun to do.

Our stunt team was led by Crispin Layfield who is one of the best stunt men in the business and my stunt driver was Andy Smart who I have worked with many times.

We were able to put the camera in the car with me as I 'drove' so it felt like you were in the passenger seat as I sped through the streets of Manchester.

It was a real challenge, but the results are spectacular.

David Morrissey plays Vince McKee and is an executive producer of The Driver.
The Driver continues on Tuesday, 30 September at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

More on The Driver
BBC Media Centre: The Driver
BBC One: The Driver: Creating the chase
BBC Writersroom: Writer Danny Brocklehurst on his morally complicated lead character

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

When I got the part I understood that the programme would be based on the books by Ann Cleeves but it all happened very quickly and I didn't have to time to do any reading before we started filming.

When Shetland returned I read all of the books and enjoyed them immensely.

I love crime fiction anyway, my mum is a great lover of Agatha Christie, and she passed this passion on to me.

Although Tosh doesn't appear in the books (the character was created for television) it was extremely useful to understand how atmospheric the books are and how deftly Ann uses the uniqueness of the location to feed the sense of mystery and tension.

My relationship with Douglas Henshall is not dissimilar to the relationship between Perez and Tosh in that he is a very experienced and knowledgeable actor, but this is my first proper television role so he has become something of a mentor.

He always keeps me right and answers my (probably annoying!) questions and I know I can go to him to talk about anything if I need to.

In real life though, we are also great pals. During filming we spend a lot of time in hotels away from our loved ones so we will tend to hang out together and have great fun.

Every few weeks a new batch of actors will arrive, people come and go, but Dougie is my constant and I don't know where I'd be without him.

In this series we see Tosh progressing in her role as DS. She still makes mistakes and needs Perez to keep her right but I think she is growing in confidence and becoming more adept at handling that level of responsibility.

In Dead Water they attend a wedding as part of their investigation and Tosh gets to glam up a bit which was fun.

 

I love her practical, comfortable clothes but she has a fun side and the make up and costume departments really successfully helped me to show that for the wedding scenes.

My favourite memory from filming was the three days we spent on Fair Isle.

It's a tiny little island 20 minutes from the main island by plane, with only 65 permanent residents.

It's a unique and magical place and the people were so welcoming and hospitable.

Filming can be solitary.

You spend a lot of time waiting around in your trailer on your own but as we were so limited in what we could take there, we all spent our down time together at the bird observatory and ate all our meals together round a big table.

Consequently we all really bonded and got to know each other and it felt like we were sharing a really special, once in a lifetime experience.

Alison O'Donnell plays DS Alison McIntosh in Shetland.

Shetland continues on Tuesday, 1 April at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on Shetland 

BBC Scotland announces the return of Shetland

BBC Writersroom: Shetland: Author Ann Cleeves on seeing her books adapted for TV

BBC One: Shetland: Interviews with the cast

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

More on Line Of Duty
BBC Writersroom: Line Of Duty Series Two: Read a blog by Jed Mercurio
BBC Writersroom: Script Library: Download the scripts from series two 
BBC Media Centre: BBC Two announces Jed Mercurio's Line of Duty commissioned for further two series

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

Thank you for all your comments. To read Hans' replies please see the Editors' Picks below. 

Apologies to all our new users for the delay in their posts appearing, we're working to get comments and replies up as quickly as we can.

More on The Bridge
BBC TV blog: The Bridge: Writing my favourite scenes

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

So we put a body exactly on the border. On the bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö. Then they had to come out from both countries.
 
But who were “they”?

We created Martin first because we knew we wanted to work with Kim Bodnia. (We didn't know if he wanted to work with us but we were going to try.)

Kim meant a white, middle-aged, male detective. We've had quite a few of them in Sweden.

Most of them divorced, with bad or no contact with their ex-wives and children, not very talkative, keeping most of their emotions inside, staring into the dark, drinking too much and listening to opera or jazz.

So we wanted something else. Someone else.

We wanted an open and empathic character with a big loving family.

Someone who enjoyed making small-talk, who was curious about his colleagues and close to his emotions. So that was Martin.

But who to bring in from Sweden? I had an idea. What if the Swedish detective was a woman with absolutely no social skills?

Everything she can read, she'll learn, but when it comes to interaction with another person, she's totally lost.

That was pretty much all we said about Saga Norén (beautifully played by Sofia Helin).

Now, the media and the audience have decided that she has Asperger’s, but we've actually never diagnosed her in the show.

I understood and loved Saga from day one. That was not the case for everybody. Broadcasters, directors and even Sofia were a little worried.

“Are we really going to like her?”  It turned out we were.

Very early, when we saw the first dailies (raw unedited footage) we understood that we had something special going on in Saga and Martin’s relationship and what worked really well was a scene in Saga’s car where they didn't discuss the case.

In fact, it worked so well that we decided that there should be at least one of those in every episode.

Saga and Martin, on their own, not talking about the case but personal stuff.

Now we refer to them as car/elevator scenes and they're my favourites to write, not only because they give me the opportunity to develop the characters more, they also provide some humour to the show.

And that is important. The Bridge is a dark and brutal story with quite a body count and you need to smile a little now and then to balance that.

With Saga and her personality I don't have to write “jokes”, I just let her ask about the things she wants to know and/or have Martin trying to educate her in social behaviour.

Or let her be brutally blunt to other human beings.

Saga and Martin’s characters and relationship are a huge factor in the success of The Bridge. I love them and since we're currently writing season three I will have the privilege to stay with them for at least another year.

Hans Rosenfeldt is the writer and co-creator of The Bridge.

The Bridge continues on Saturday, 25 January at 9pm on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Bridge
BBC TV blog: Live web chat with Hans Rosenfeldt 
BBC Breakfast: Watch an interview with Sofia Helin and Kim Bodnia

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

This monochromatic approach to right and wrong is something that really appealed to me about the character I play, Jessica Jones.

She never questions the need to lock these criminals away and can be pretty ruthless, often joking about a nastier punishment for the team's subjects. In fact I sometimes think she's not joking.

It’s interesting to play someone with unwavering determination, but for me the really interesting thing is to discover the character's secrets, why she relishes the demise of the criminals.

Role-playing is Jessica’s particular skill, she adopts different characters with ease and enjoys the process.

She's the only female within the team so there are certain tasks only she can undertake and this is fine by Jessica.

She can keep up with the boys' banter but also feels secure enough with them to be vulnerable. My personal experience of working with the other actors wasn't too dissimilar.

We were like siblings and found a shared humour and love of music that created a pretty unique bond. Get Lucky by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell will always remind me of summer on the By Any Means set in 2013.

This camaraderie is something I think the writers warmed to and began to weave more banter through the script as the series progressed.

The unique dynamic of the team is where much of the programme's originality lies and I'm sure the creators will continue to develop this. I'd also hope the show would see more action sequences.

The physical aspect of the team's story grows as the series develops and it's something we all enjoy and feel pretty capable of making work.

There was a scene in episode five where Jessica is attacked by the criminal the team is pursuing. She holds her own, fights back and regains control.

This physical capability adds another layer to Jessica's character. It empowers her and as an actress this is a great discovery and fun to play.

I felt very honoured to be asked to be part of this production, it's been a while since I'd done a series for British television and it's a comfortable, familiar place to be.

It's always fun to go wherever your work takes you, but it's lovely to be home!

Shelley Conn plays Jessica Jones in By Any Means.

By Any Means continues on Sunday, 13 October at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

No one knew he was looking for a little-known actor up to the challenge to take on the role of the detective at a younger age. 

No one knew that among his projects lay that of shooting the prequel of the iconic character, based on the very first novels by Andrea Camilleri.

A few days later I received a phone call from my agent who told me about a phone conversation with Degli Esposti and how he had been impressed by my look.

He told me that Carlo had in mind having young Montalbano as somewhat of a Che Guevara and that my red shirt soldier had convinced him I could be him.

I was extremely flattered by the proposal but I didn’t accept immediately. It took me several months before I managed to convince myself.

Montalbano was always Luca Zingaretti. Anyone in Italy and abroad thinks of him when picturing the character.

Needless to say he always interpreted Montalbano perfectly, giving back all the complexities of his personality.

Salvo Montalbano isn’t a simple character, many ambiguities distinguish him.

He really loves women but always ends up running from them, they make him uneasy and insecure.

All the while he is a stable and tenacious person, and stubborn, just like the typical Sicilian stereotype. He finds it extremely difficult to respect hierarchies, particularly men having more important roles than him.

Yet he is an impeccable detective, who learned everything from his inspector, who gave him all the necessary tools to be an incredible cop.

He also has a tendency to stand up and take care of the weaker, even if they were to go against a law that in some instances to him, was arguable.

Basically Montalbano isn’t just a policeman, but he also is a citizen, a defender of the polis, of the civil life.

 

I feared some sort of media attack, since changing the face of the detective was almost blasphemy to some.

So I raised two requests: the first was to meet and discuss the idea with Andrea Camilleri, the second was to have my own freedom regarding the use of the dialect, meaning I wanted to feel free to not worry about the “understandability” of some terms.

In the novels, the Sicilian used is a very archaic dialect, a mix coming from various places in Sicily. I was keen to keep it as it was, after all the books didn’t provide notes or explanations either.

The production accepted, Andrea was happy to meet and approve me, and he kept me talking about the character for hours. I listened and stole as much information as possible.

It isn’t every day an actor gets to talk about the character with the person that created him. In other words, I accepted the challenge.

The desire to do as well as Zingaretti and his team gave our whole team a particular energy that accompanied us for the whole six months of production.

Michele Riondino plays Salvo Montalbano in The Young Montalbano.

The Young Montalbano continues on Saturday, 5 October at 9pm on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Young Montalbano
The Independent: The Weekend's Viewing: Subtitles should stop no one warming to this compelling Italian
Metro: The prequel to Inspector Montalbano is a treat for fans of European drama
Mrs Peabody Investigates: The Young Montalbano is on his way...

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

 

Steve Knight had written the most powerfully strong and strikingly intelligent female roles.

They are feisty and fearless with sharp intellect and this so matches up with how I see womankind. This is what women are like!

Steve had written his female characters in the form of so many women I know in my life. I think the draw of the show is that women and men will relate to these complex, flawed, beautiful characters.

My character Grace has a mystery about her and I was fascinated by her strength.

The bravery that drives Grace into the lair of the notorious Peaky Blinders gang made her fascinating to me.

Driven by some kind of disturbing loss she is a powerhouse of strength and a match to any man, particularly at a time so unlike our own when women were considered second class citizens and female education was not encouraged.

Women were denied the right to vote unless they were 30 and met the minimum property qualifications.

With all the factors against women at the time, her absolute fearlessness and almost maddening bravery and dedication to her cause meant that I had to fight my hardest to have the chance to play her.

Parts like that don't come along very often.

Taking into account all the above factors you'd expect Grace to be hardened by the time she lived in, but she has this unexpected relatable fragility about her.

A fragility that (I hope!) makes the audience like and root for her as she comes from such an honest place.

The beauty in people I find are in their flaws and Grace is hugely flawed and knows it.

From the moment I read her I wanted to follow her journey until I understood her completely.

When taking on the part there was of course so much research to be done as it was set in such an incredible time in British history.

Try to imagine your life in the throes of a world war with the young men in your city, town, village sent away without a choice.

There was the suffragette movement fighting for women’s right to vote, the Separatist movement in Ireland and then a horrific world war.

I wanted to get inside these people’s heads and do my best to understand the pressures upon them.

What would it be like for a generation of men and women at the end of a war who suffer with post-traumatic stress?

It was so much to do with the politics of the time that triggered certain groups of people like the Peaky Blinders, and understanding their use of violence as a form of expression and as their voice.

Grace is a double-agent, she has many different sides. She plays both Campbell and Tommy to a T!

It was hard because I never thought her true intention was to harm but her conviction and dedication to her cause is unwavering, meaning standing by choices that you know could potentially harm her.

What I love is that Tommy, this dangerous and feared man, becomes her moral compass.

A woman you thought was unwavering at the start eventually gives you a sense that she is beginning to feel. She is human like us all.

We all make mistakes and cause hurt and pain... Let’s see what lies ahead for our Grace.

The beauty of Peaky Blinders is also in the way it is shot. In the hands of Otto Bathurst and Tom Harper it looks like it’s made for the cinema and it felt like a movie on set.

The locations and sets were epic! Most of the filming took place in Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool or often we were pitched up in a muddy field somewhere.

We were generally damp and bloody freezing! But in all honesty the conditions helped as it made it more real.

Sincerely I couldn’t have done it without my handsome co-stars telling me my nose was dribbling in the cold every five minutes... a sure way to make you feel very unsexy!

When you’re on a set like Peaky Blinders you don't want to leave. I'm sure most people can relate to being at work or doing something with people and feeling like it’s something really special.

You feed off everyone’s excitement and the sheer level of talent in all departments meant you wanted to work your hardest not to let them all down.

When that is the general consensus of the cast, crew and production team... it made for a unique environment. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it.

Annabelle Wallis plays Grace Burgess in Peaky Blinders.

Peaky Blinders continues with episode two at 9pm on Thursday, 19 September on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on Peaky Blinders
BBC News: Birmingham's real Peaky Blinders
Daily Mail: The real Peaky Blinders
Express & Star: I hate period TV shows - but Peaky Blinders was rock 'n' roll
The Telegraph: Peaky Blinders, BBC Two, review
The Guardian: TV and radio blog + Peaky Blinders: episode by episode

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

All the dark secrets and hidden lives are kept within the confines of its walls, converted into separate flats.

Our job was to trap you, the audience, in the house with a killer.

I knew that we could do this by having full control of the layout and architectural detail of the house and no location would allow us this freedom.

So we built everything as a set in the studio: the staircase, loft and all five flats at Ealing and Wimbledon Studios. I hope we had you fooled.

The staircase was designed first as this was the main artery of the house.

It stood 40 foot tall in the studio and whilst the front door matched our real exterior house location in Greenwich, London, the layout of stairs and corridors were entirely our own invention to serve the needs of the script, director and camera.

The characters’ flats were then designed but working within the parameters of budget and schedule only one master flat was built.

This was a system of movable walls, doors and fireplaces and plug-in windows, kitchens and bathrooms.

We would then have just either 12 or 24 hours, often overnight, to transform one flat into another - changing layout, wall colours and all furnishings and props.

As challenging as this was logistically and to our sleep patterns it meant we retained the identity of the house in every character’s space.

Here’s the reality: a designer’s job is about finding the balance between the visual storytelling and the practical demands of a production - the art and the business.

My biggest influence was Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby designed by the legendary Richard Sylbert who inspired me to play with architectural detail for emotional effect: up-turned, oversized Victorian mouldings all create much deeper shadows giving the house more dark places to hide.

Not often does a designer get to explore this type of set design on a contemporary TV crime drama, it is more usual to work entirely on location so this was a gift of a job for me.

Coky Giedroyc the director was fully behind my bold ideas and trusted me to experiment. We didn’t play it safe because the story demanded that we shouldn’t.

Her vision for the programme was equally daring so we worked collaboratively to keep pushing each other and yet supporting each other’s approach - the key to a good designer-director relationship.

Lisa Marie Hall is the production designer for What Remains.

What Remains begins on Sunday, 25 August at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on What Remains
BBC Writersroom blog: Writing a whodunit: What Remains

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Can you tell us a detail from the script where you felt a connection to Stella?
It's hard to say. I am intrigued by her no-nonsense way of being. And that over time we get to see warmth and what she cares about. She is an enigma.

What are the key factors behind Stella's professional decisions?
I think she is professional and driven and has a mind for this kind of work and knows that if she keeps at it she will crack it. I think on the whole she works from instinct but I think this case touches her much deeper and that's in part what is driving her. Her emotions have become engaged and that's unusual for her. She is thrown.

Are her personal decisions driven by different impulses? Such as when she introduces herself to the policeman...
Obviously this is one of the ways she compartmentalises for better or worse. She has found a way to justify this act in her mind. She is used to dominating her environment and here she goes again. I think we all have to compartmentalise, especially with all the versions of ourselves we are expected to perform with some self- and society-imposed perfection. We do it with aspects of our inner selves and with relationships between work and home and other.

How do you portray this contrast?
It's compelling to see characters that have duality. Playing that is easy. It feels more natural for one, than a single dimensional character but also there's layers to build on and that's the joy and challenge of the work. Humans are more complex than our wildest imaginations. And then sometimes, oftentimes, we as individuals can't even explain why we do the things we do. We take stabs at it, we hypothesise and justify, but then years later we may realise it was all down to a forgotten event in childhood. So any fabricated history for a character can also have that same complexity – the character might even think it's one thing but it can be something laying much deeper.

Do you think there are any aspects of her character that she shares with Paul Spector?
Yes but I think I need to let that unravel on screen.

Gillian Anderson plays DSI Stella Gibson in The Fall.

The Fall series two returns in November on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Once I'd fallen in love with my subject matter, I knew I had to do it justice by doing as much research as I could. 

I began with visiting the Metropolitan Police Museum which opened to the public in 2009 and is located at the Met's recruitment centre near Earls Court in London.

It is a small but fascinating collection of artefacts taken from a vast array of such treasures collected by Scotland Yard over at least a 100 years of policing – uniforms, weapons, photographs and archive footage.

I was even allowed to try on a genuine WPC's uniform jacket from the 1950s. While I was there I chatted to a couple of lovely retired policemen who were only too happy to tell me stories of the WPCs they worked alongside, mostly in the 60s and 70s. 

One anecdote that stuck with me ended up in episode one, where the male officers give Gina Dawson a 'Brinford Branding'.

This was apparently a real tradition in some police stations, where new recruits were rubber stamped on the backside by their new colleagues, and the women had to endure the initiation too (although they proffered their thighs as a compromise).

The retired officer described the women as being "game" for it, but I wondered if it was really good fun to them, or if they were merely anxious to fit in.

Also I was told some female officers volunteered to work undercover as decoys, and occasionally were attacked before the male officers could intervene.

This was echoed in a book I read called The Gentle Arm Of The Law by Jennifer Hilton, a WPC in the 1950s.

She gives a vivid, firsthand account of walking along a canal at night in the hope of drawing out a reported rapist. She escaped unscathed but found the experience understandably frightening.

I was struck by the irony of the so-called "fairer sex" electing to take such risks, and yet they were generally considered less brave or capable than the men.

I interviewed Sioban Clark, Chairman of the Metropolitan Women Police Association and she told me about the impossible choice women had to make between love and career – if a female officer chose to marry or have children she would automatically lose her job.

These were some of the realities I wanted to reflect in the BBC One series.

The fact that women police were treated as an isolated section of the police force meant that even when they worked alongside the men, their ranks and responsibilities were considered separate.

They weren't fully integrated into the main force until the early 70s, and they didn't drop the prefix for Woman Police Constables until 1999.

No matter what her rank, a female officer in Gina's time was expected to do the typing for even the lowliest male colleague.

Reading firsthand accounts and listening to hours and hours of transcripts of police women and men, there were of course many differing experiences, and certainly not all of them were bad. 

However, most would agree that making tea for the men was simply part of the job!

Dominique Moloney is the creator of WPC 56, and wrote episodes one, three and five.

WPC 56 continues daily until Friday, 22 March at 2.15pm on BBC One. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.